Israel Center for Family Justice

Bat Melech’s legal department, the Israel Center for Family Justice, enhances Israel’s civil rights for women and girls by showing that legal services are not a privilege but a right for all. The Center does this by providing professional, efficient and reliable lawyers, social workers and staff to those women who seek to end their marriages but can not afford it.

In 2004, Bat Melech opened the Israel Center for Family Justice, the only organization of its kind, offering free and comprehensive legal aid for victims of domestic abuse in the secular and religious courts. Serving all women regardless of religious or ethnic background, professional lawyers at the Center seeks restraining orders as appropriate, child custody, alimony and divorce or separation agreements.

The Center serves over 1,000 women each year.

Located in Jerusalem, the Center also employs a lawyer who travels to communities in the periphery, on an as-needed basis. In 2008, together with the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000, the Center opened a branch in Beit Shemesh.

The Center is the only national agency that assists all abused women, regardless of location and affinity. It especially serves women who have not needed to flee to shelters; in fact, it can often preempt placement in the shelter system through effective orders of protection and restraint.